In a Deadly Vein by Brett Halliday Read Free Book Online

around all the time, how did she miss you?”
    “By golly, I don’t know. Mighty big crowd out here, but she could of asked anybody.”
    “That,” said Shayne, “is just what I’m afraid she did—asked the wrong person.” He shrugged and rubbed his lean jaw. “Any leads on Pete’s death?”
    “Haven’t had time to do much work on that.” Fleming was apologetic. “Been asking questions around. Screwloose has been in town a couple of weeks celebrating his new prospect up on Arrow Mountain. Poor old devil. First time in ten years he’s hit pay-rock, and all he gets is a smashed head.”
    “Do you mean to tell me he has recently located a rich mine?”
    “Plenty rich, I reckon. I heard Pete had turned down a cold hundred thousand for his third share just on the first assays. With that kind of money offered for a prospect, you can bet your boots it’ll pan out near a million.”
    Shayne whistled softly. “I thought all the gold was taken out of the hills forty years ago.”
    “All the gold in them mountains? Look at ’em.” The sheriff waved his hand toward the peaks rising black and ominously against the sky. “The surface hasn’t hardly been scratched yet. Why, there’s a dozen mines producing gold the year ’round in a mile of here.”
    “A million dollars,” Shayne mused, “is motive enough for a dozen murders. You said he had a third share. Who are his partners?”
    “Well, sir, there was another old-timer in with him by the name of Cal Strenk. And Jasper Windrow grubstaked them both. So it’s got to be split three ways.”
    A muscle twitched in Shayne’s cheek. “The storekeeper?”
    “That’s right.” Fleming cleared his throat elaborately. “Fellow you had a run-in with this afternoon. He’s been grubstaking Pete and Cal for years, and now he’s due to clean up.”
    “Then Strenk and Windrow will profit by Pete’s death,” Shayne mused aloud.
    “I don’t rightly see how,” the sheriff said. “I reckon Pete’s girl will get his third.”
    “But, if the daughter hadn’t shown up?” Shayne said harshly. “No one knew who Pete was until tonight. Suppose he had died without an heir? Wouldn’t his share revert to his partners?”
    “I don’t know what the law’d be on that. But I don’t see how it matters. His own girl identified him. You saw her do it. She’ll come into his share, all right.”
    “It does matter,” Shayne grated. “Whoever killed him didn’t know he was Nora Carson’s father—that by a strange coincidence she was going to see and recognize him a few minutes before he was murdered. That was pure chance. Something the killer hadn’t reckoned on. Looking for a motive, we can leave the girl’s identification of Pete out of it. See what I mean?”
    “I reckon maybe I do,” Fleming said dubiously, “but I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. Nobody hereabout would of killed Pete. I’m betting it was one of these city dudes the town’s got more of than a hound dog has fleas.”
    Shayne said, “Maybe. But Westerners aren’t immune to gold-fever any more than they were sixty years ago. They’ve murdered each other for gold plenty of times.”
    “That’s just fool talk,” the sheriff said angrily. “Central City has been a gold town sixty years and nothing like that ever happened here. But when you start bringing in Easterners, look out. Liquor does funny things to a man when he’s a mile and a half up.”
    “Thanks for the tip. I’ll wander into the bar and investigate that angle.”
    Shayne was half a dozen long strides away when an excited man ran past him shouting, “Sheriff! Sheriff Fleming! Come here quick!”
    Shayne stopped to listen.
    “There’s a man in the bar threatening to kill one of the actors—fellow named Carson. You better get hold of him before there’s trouble. He’s shooting drunk.” The sheriff bolted through the crowd, his bronzed face perplexed and angry.

 
CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    SHAYNE FOLLOWED FLEMING into